Shot entirely in Manhattan, using local talent (I love the scenes on board the Hudson River Ferry and at the Ninety-first Street seaplane landing), "Close-Up" is a film noir with a difference. I'll admit that the script tends to be somewhat juvenile. I wondered what a classy producer like Richard Kollmar was doing in it until I remembered that he had a weekly side job as radio's Boston Blackie, having taken over from Chester Morris. Who could ever forget each week's sonorous introduction: "Friend to those who have no friends! Enemy to those who make him an enemy!" And of course Kollmar was later the other half of radio's "Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick". As it happened, "Close-Up" was his only movie, though he did make a couple of TV appearances and was the host of "Guess What!:
But I digress! The point I'm making is that while "Close-Up" is occasionally somewhat amateurish in script and flat-footed in direction, it's never boring or dull. What's more, an appropriately noirish pictorial tone in lighting and atmosphere is masterfully created by New York's resident cinematographer, Bill Miller. And of equal importance, this movie marks the film debut of an original score by the famed orchestrator, Jerome Moross, who later composed for "The Big Country" (1958) which I consider to be the best music score ever written for a movie.
But I digress! The point I'm making is that while "Close-Up" is occasionally somewhat amateurish in script and flat-footed in direction, it's never boring or dull. What's more, an appropriately noirish pictorial tone in lighting and atmosphere is masterfully created by New York's resident cinematographer, Bill Miller. And of equal importance, this movie marks the film debut of an original score by the famed orchestrator, Jerome Moross, who later composed for "The Big Country" (1958) which I consider to be the best music score ever written for a movie.